The following letter by Mackinac Center Executive Vice
President
Joseph Lehman was published by the Leelanau Enterprise on Oct. 30,
2003. Lehman was responding to coverage by that paper of a speech given by
Mackinac Center President
Lawrence Reed on Oct. 20 in Leelanau County.

To the Editor:

The Oct. 22 story "Farmland
question splits Republicans in Leelanau" erroneously reported my institute’s
position on farmland preservation as the opposite of our actual position.

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The story incorrectly states
that the
Mackinac Center for Public Policy has "taken a position against
farmland preservation." The correct information is that Mackinac Center analyst
Diane Katz found that Michigan’s $800 million farmland tax-credit program has
failed to preserve farmland from development. There is a big difference.

Katz’s research is the first attempt by anyone inside or outside of
government to gauge the success of the 21-year-old program. Katz found that
nearly three-quarters of the $800 million in farmland preservation tax credits
actually goes to the owners of land most distant from development pressure.
There were zero enrollments in the program in five of the state’s highest-growth
counties in three recent years.

Among
Katz’s recommendations to better preserve farmland are legislation to
authorize private land trusts to administer the state’s preservation program,
and the creation of penalties for land speculators who exploit the state’s
generous tax credits.

Readers may review the
Mackinac Center’s research for themselves. The complete 23-page analysis is
available at
www.mackinac.org/5644.

Opposing a failed government
program is not the same thing as opposing the goal of that program. Identifying
waste, fraud, and abuse in a food stamp program, for example, does not make one
"anti-food" or "pro-hunger."

Government’s actual
accomplishments do not always match government’s intentions. The Mackinac
Center provides independent, nonpartisan, objective research on public policy to
equip citizens and officials to make the wisest choices.